Friday, November 6, 2015

Cleaning Smith Corona Galaxie Twelve Typewriter

The first thing I noticed when I received this typewriter is that the inside was quite dirty. It was more like, there were a lot of dust and some other sand kind of particles inside. Just like computer keyboards have dust and other dirty things under the keys.

This typewriter was worse than those keyboards though since it has been used since 1960s.

I did not know if I want to disassemble or not since making even a small mistake can ruin the entire thing. It would take forever or even impossible to assemble everything back together if I make even a single mistake!

I was really hoping to break into every single part to clean them, but I decided to clean just basic parts by removing covering boards and plates. Which was still not easy.

I know, however, how to do basic disassembly now.

Hey, trust me. I am an engineer.

Here are the guidelines for you to remove the top spool cover, bottom plate, side plate, and keyboard cover.

- Remove bottom plate by removing top two bolts.

- Open the top spool cover and look in front of it. There are two bolts total, connecting top cover leg each side. Remove those bolts to remove the top cover. To remove the cover, push from both sides just like squeezing it and lift it.

- Unscrew two bolts each side of the typewriter to remove the black retractable top plate holder.

- Look inside and sides of the keyboard. There is a bolt on each side. Unscrew them to remove the keyboard cover.

- Unscrew four bolts of bottom plate and lift the entire device off the bottom plate.

I used Zippo liquid fluid to remove all gums and stains.

Why use Zippo? If you are a person who did or does plastic model making (aka, plamodel), we do understand that the best way to remove stains, enamel paints, and glues is to use a paint thinner. Now, what makes it great is that a thinner can dissolve and somewhat "melt" the gums very affectively. Also, it evaporates very quickly too! Everything gets cleaned very nice and easily...